“Reflect, ye gentle dames, that much they know,
Who gain experience from another's woe.”

“He gains wisdom in a happy way, who gains it by another’s experience.”
Feliciter is sapit, qui alieno periculo sapit.

“If you ask how he is to know when one interest outweighs another, I can only answer that he must get his knowledge just as the legislator gets it, from experience and study and reflection; in brief, from life itself.”

“We do not learn from experience… we learn from reflecting on experience.”

“There are three methods to gaining wisdom. The first is reflection, which is the highest. The second is limitation, which is the easiest. The third is experience, which is the bitterest.”

“Alas! by some degree of woe
We every bliss must gain;
The heart can ne'er a transport know
That never feels a pain.”

“You stood in the belltower,
But now you're gone.
So who knows all the sights
Of Notre Dame?”

“Ah, gentle dames! it gars me greet
To think how monie counsels sweet,
How monie lengthened, sage advices,
The husband frae the wife despises!”

“Who reflects too much will accomplish little.”

“For whoso lives, as I, in many woes,
How can it be but death shall bring him gain?”